Sunday, January 29, 2017

Production Begins on Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Fashion Project!

With little fanfare, or flashy cast and crew rollout, the set photos speak for themselves: production is officially underway on Paul Thomas Anderson's eighth feature-length motion picture.

Above is just one of a whole slew of set photos that were released over the past 48 hours by UK newspaper the Whitby Gazette, and seems to be the only one of the batch where Paul is visible (albeit in the background).

We've kept some of the more exciting photographs below the fold for any purists out there who want to decide how fresh they'll go into this newest PTA endeavor. Having said that, peep below at your own discretion and also view the full set of photos from the Whitby Gazette here.

A friend of someone who was at the British rental company this film is using said that the friend saw/heard that PTA would be his own cinematographer on it. Admittedly, that could be a game of telephone or the friend completely misinterpreted what he heard, but given that I think PTA was his own cinematographer on his Radiohead videos (given there was no DOP listed in the credits for any of them), this could very well be correct.

My understanding is that he and Mihai Malaimare did not get along during production of The Master, and PTA ended up being the de-facto DP for much of that shoot, going straight to the gaffer to plan the day's shooting. Would still be a little surprised to hear he's doing it on his own, however.

I read the rumour on the XIXAX forum. It doesnt have a lot of people posting and isnt terribly active. just hardcore fans talking about movies. so if someone posts something there Id take their word that what they are posting is the truth as far as they are aware.

(Alberto on his new secretive account because I didn't realize it would be posting my real name.)

@Jac - It was just from a friend who works in production (camera side) who had mentioned that to me as a story he had head, so definitely take it with a few grains of salt. Worth nothing, however, that MM's career has been weirdly stagnant after seeming poised to get a big-league call up. But if we want to go really deep... **puts on tin foil hat**

He did a weirdly small amount of press for The Master. Again, not super common for a DP to do the full press circuit, but I think usually on a project like this you hear from the DP a bit more. Check out this interview he did where he diplomatically says, "it [took] a while for everyone to get used to each other."

Also check out this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3-cdrDg3Gg where around the 2 minute mark he starts talking about the challenges of the shoot (it was a question, so he wasn't responding unprompted). He mentions how little time he felt he had to do the setups, and specifically mentions that the gaffer was a big part of figuring out how to work with that size crew.

The ASC article for The Master is pretty straightforward, so maybe this is all much ado about nothing.

It's so strange to me that he was filming pretty much just down the road from me. Like, my favourite filmmaker breaks away from setting his stories in California for (I think) the first time and suddenly he's filming basically on my doorstep? What on Earth?

Wow very interesting rumor that Paul is shooting himself. The work he did with Elswitt is amazing! Paul has said in interviews that Bob Elswitt took him by the hand and basically showed him how to make films, I read an interview around the Boogie Nights/Magnolia era that him and Bob fight a lot in a good way. Basically Elswitt being a very by the book and stylish cinematographer and that PTA always wanted to take risks. What I can say is that PTA has an innate sense and talent for the camera. He knows exactly what he wants visually and sometimes his collaborators don't get it. He used to read all the American Cinematographer issues to understand how they got the look on the films he loves. I bet his technical knowledge is above par by know, yet he focuses more on working with his actors. Filmmaking is in his DNA, the point is his visual style is so unique and perfectly balanced, yet when he is making his films he's like a mad man in perfect control of everything, if that makes any sense. And he searches for those kind of collaborators. Like a free jazz band.